Am I making it up? Or maybe you have not noticed or don't look for it.
I have not read any books on cardiovascular disease, so I will assume it is not a thing.
You and I 110% agree here.

 

I read a lot of car forums, so if there were rampant failures of LED lighting systems out there on the scale of what you mention, I think I would have read about them. I'm a pretty perceptive guy, and I'm always looking at cars on the road, if I was seeing a ton of cars with LED lights out...I think I would notice.

 

I didn't say rampant why try to conflate what I said. I see NEW vehicles (1-3 years old) with flickering or burnt out LEDs. Seen in on Ford, BMW, as mentioned Kia, and others. Oh, and the 3rd mounted brake lights, ones with the multiple single LED emitters I see those burnt out all the time. And that is relatively old LED technology that runs at low current.

There is this weird misconception that LEDs never go bad when in fact they fail all the time. Because as I said they are driven at high current and high temperatures, that is a universal recipe for failure in anything. The worst part is many of these lamps are not serviceable, they burn out you have to replace the entire unit.

edit - here ya go 2 second google search first result of many
https://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=1543481

 

There are lots of Tesla headlight issues if one googles it. I assume they are all LED

 

I"ve seen LED's out on the taillights of cars (either the individual little dots or the sections of light pipe), some DRLs but i've yet to see widespread LED main headlamps out.


Slightly off topic, I hate the number of cars I see driving around without headlights on. This problem is being exacerbated on some cars by the constantly backlit instrument cluster, display radios, and semi bright DRL's at night. But your taillights aren't showing! And some cars do this even without any DRL on. This is more crazy when I know that the particular car has automatic headlights, but they obviously aren't set to auto. This is where i like the OEMs that default headlights to auto on (this is more popular with the headlight buttons that you see on german cars, or the twist **** on the dash for many american cars) and you'd have to purposely turn them off. Some cars (mostly VW and Audi that i've seen) will even either dim the instrument cluster or pop up a warning if you drive without headlights on and it's dark out. Sorry, just a rant on headlights.... haha

 

Not trying to "conflate" what you said, but I just don't understand the differentiation. When you say you see something "all the time" how is it a stretch to call that issue "rampant"? Its semantics.

I have seen those things you mention, but I wouldn't say I see that "all the time" or even often.

The point is if you are a buyer of a vehicle, how likely are you to experience failure of an LED headlight module? We're not talking about running lights or brake lights or turn signals, we're talking about headlights. The two may have a correlation, or they may not.

Everything can fail, the question is do they commonly fail?



I see this all the time too!

 

Obviously, they know their priorities.

 

My 2019 top trim level Highlander, at $49k, came with halogens and I hate them. Probably my only real disappointment with that vehicle. It's on my list to upgrade them to LED, but then now we're not really driving anywhere, especially at night, so it's a low priority, but I'll get there eventually.

I have the optional triple LEDs in my GS and they are nothing short of awesome.

I also opted for the LEDs on my Tacoma and they are also truly amazing. Their light output is crazy good.

 

It's because virtually all cars have "lit up" interiors (be it gauges, or whatever) now that give certain drivers the feeling that the lights are on. I see this all the time, as well. I try to flash them and they pay zero attention.

I started my piece in the other thread before I realized there was this one but I couldn't agree more, halogen are AWFUL. The ones in my truck are absolutely terrible, straight out of the 80s and 90s, not even "cleared" lenses. To where you wonder how a vehicle so expensive when new had that for headlights. (Mine is SLT--Denali had projector beam, but still halogen) However, you get used to it. So we did get by. But oh yeah. My LS430 has very good headlights but I was surprised not bi-xenon when I got it.

I have never experienced LED. I hear they take getting used to but are the best?

Mike, the Enclave has regular Xenon headlights. They shame my LS430s headlights like my LS430s shames my Yukon's. I'm glad my mother (who doesn't see that well at night) has those. They turn and pivot much more than Lexus ones (Lexus ones I know, at least) at anything above a crawl. The bright lights are ridiculous. I don't see how anyone could wreck an Enclave at night and say "I couldn't see." Lol.

 

No matter how good the light emitter happens to be it doesn't mean anything if the housing that is reflecting/projecting the light is not properly designed. On cars without auto lights this is unforgivable, same with any new model that comes with halogens, for the headlights or anywhere else on the vehicle. Seeing a 50K Toyota with old school turn signals is ridiculous and just screams, hey everyone we're Toyota and we cheaped out.

 

My guess is that Out of all full line manufacturers, Toyota has the most models with LED headlight technology. I think every Lexus has LED headlights

 

Thats one of the reasons I never considered that generation Highlander...

 

This is a great thread that frankly I'm surprised hasn't existed until now, lol. With how neat (head) light tech is now, in so many areas of the car.

About halogen, I do have to agree with the poster above who said that they were adequate...and more than adequate in nicer cars.

I remember my Dad's old 1997 BMW 740iL had insane headlights, both high and low beam. I specifically remember riding in and driving it on dark interstates....great headlights. Not as good as today, of course, but yeah.

 

Are you sure they weren't HID? Because you could get HIDs on that year 7 Series.

 

Only on the 750. They came standard.

His business acquaintance had a 750 with them, but I never was in it at night.